Master Class of Helen Leblique

May 27, 2013 (Monday) We choose from the brecht work which is "A short Organum for the Theatre", and i choose this quote which i think this is the most important to his theory. "'Theatre' consists in this: in making live presentations of reported or invented happenings between human beings and doing so with a view to entertainment. At any rate that is what we shall mean when we speak of theatre, whether old or new." In this quote brecht wants to say that making theatre is like in live presentations or it could be like invented or whats happening in theatre even thought it is old ways of using theatre or in a modern ways.

May 29, 2013 (Wednesday) We got 3 hours of theatre to do a workshop about Brecht and some set design of Mother Courage which is lead by Director Helen Leblique. At first i was not nervous on what we will do so far its like an ordinary day for me but when we got to start i got a little nervous then  especially when we got our first thing that we will do, and i call it as "GO and STOP GAME" where i do like it cause it has a concentration and i am always getting to what Ms. Helen will say, i found this game as an exciting and i learned some thing from it is about on giving your attention and focus to what the leader will say and do you will do it.

On the 2 thing that we do is to give us an exaggerated moves, its like walking at the center back and forth and some people will give the instruction on how they would like you to be, just like "bend your knees, walk faster, give a big smile...etc...." so i felt in this exercise that it is really weird and its really funny on how you gave the others on how they walk. By giving the other way on walking with exaggerate walk, and after this e do another exercises which is about having a partner that the thing the we exaggerate will do it by your partner and i will do what my partner did, and the last thing that we do is having partners also and we need to make a 1 scene that has relate to the two character, me and bekki do a scene, my role is a grandmother of bekki which is she is my granddaughter that i never seen her because of my daughter that she keep away from me for many years, and we act it at first we don't know what we will do so far because we don't have any idea and also wed on't know what we need to say, but then as we go on we think some ideas that we need to use for me it is not really difficult when you got the idea in my head, so next thing we do is to narrate what we will do and act it, i felt that it is really difficult that you will narrate it and do it also as a character where when we narrate it we should be like us nothing to show to the audience but when we go back to our haracter we need to be exaggerate our moves and act, in this exercises i found it is really difficult to handle two roles in play, but then i know and i experience it that it is not that easy to it as your own. 
On the last our of our master class we talked about Mother Courage and give some ideas that what we learned from it why is it look like and asking us if we liked it or not, well for me i got boring and i don't even know some of the words, i really like to watch it than to read it. Ms. Helen. The most important that i learned from her is about all of this questions:

• Do i need the politic become clear? Why?
• What is the most important thing?
• How do i make it exciting in front of the stage?
• How you build and design the show?

When i heard this question that i remember is that it is really important to know especially when we need to do our PPP about Set design. 

In this Master Class i really learned more things about brecht and i'm really want this to happen again in my life! :D

May 30, 2013 (Friday) This day is about yesterday on what we learned from Ms. Helen, we should give us 3 important things, and i wrote this 3 things:

1. How you build and design the audience
2. How do i make it exciting in front of the audience?
3. Creating not for yourself but for your audience

I think this is important because it tells about being an actor on how you will present it and being a set designer, and thinking the all this thing that we do is not for us it is for the audience who can appreciate the things and how they will enjoy watching the presentation.

Helen Lebliques's Masterclass!

            At the beginning of this week we discussed Brecht in turns of his theories. We undertook dramaturgical research by reading and annotating several sources. From Brecht’s own, “A Short Organum for the Theatre” I’ve selected the following quote which I believe accurately expresses the main idea of his theory: “We need a type of theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights and impulses possible within the particular historical field of human relations in which the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the field itself.” In this quote Brecht is expressing his idea that theatre should not be narrative in the way that is should not create a passive audience. Rather Brecht wants the theatre to encourage people to take action to change the present situation presented in the play.

            On Wednesday we were lucky enough to have a workshop with director Helen Leblique! We were told that the workshop would be on Brechtian acting, that way we could incorporate some of her directorial insight into our set designs for “Mother Courage”.  I was very nervous when she came in for a couple of reasons: I wanted to impress her, I wanted to be open about learning something new, and I was pretty sure there would be an element of improvisation. (I’m starting to think that improvisation is the only way to devise! At least that I’ve been exposed to yet…) All of the nerves aside Helen came in and was very friendly and open! (Also so told us that she herself wasn’t much of an actor, a prospect that really opened my eyes to her genuine role as a director.

            The workshop started with a warm-up game, almost like Simon’s Says, except in this case we were meant to do the opposite of the action. Ex: When we hear stop it really mean go! I found this “game” pretty fun, even though it required concentration I used to picking up choreography quickly from dance so I didn’t find it too difficult to manage. I really stepped out of my comfort zone when I volunteered to go first (oh yeah!) and basically invited the entire room to watch me walk back and forth across the space…Weird I know! However the point of this exercise was for the rest of the ensemble to say the little “quirks” that the person walking was doing; we would then exaggerate those aspects of our walk, which at that point had become a complete characterization! Eventually we learned how to neutralize our walks but toning town the exaggerations and removing the essence of our personal movement. Once I got to this neutral stage it really helped me in the process of actor because later in the workshop I was able to move from neutral to character in an improv scene.

            Helen gave some very specific advice regarding the process of directing and or more specifically getting started with a piece. You must answer the question:

1. Why should this play be performed now? Why is it relevant?
2. Where and how will it be staged?
3. Why should you direct it? What is your personal take?

Later when we were discussing “Mother Courage”, she explained the importance retaining your personal first impressions of a piece. I found the play boring and cast Mother Courage as a villain. If I was direction Mother Courage I could use those emotional responses to help aide the process, either by highlighting Courage’s villainous nature or adapting it. The last key idea that stuck with me was the informality of theatre. I’d always known “the business” was hard to get into but the more I hear the more it seems like who you know. For example Helen said that most of her “job interviews” are informal “coffee meetings”...just another aspect of the arts that makes it for the perfect for passionate poverty-stricken artists.

Set Design, PPP and Love Wins All

Wednesday 22nd May-

Continuing our Brech studies, we created our own set design action plans for his play, Mother Courage. We shared ideas for the action plan and agreed that although some of the necessary steps had already been done, it was best to jot them down for potential reference in a TPPP. As a group, we decided not to have deadlines on the action plan as each of the ppoints in the plan can be achieved by the same deadline. In fact, some go hand in hand and cannot be accomplished as separate tasks.
This task is a very creative one and I think my inner theatre student can greatly benefit from it! I say this but I can't help but fell kinda overwhelmed by how huge this is. And, joy of joys, we have a PPP as well! Woohoo...

To follow this up, we got some general feeback on our TPPP's. I originally thought that mine was nowhere near as good as I could have made, particularly as I sort-of involuntarily scripted it, which is a big no-no. I think that double sided page of advice Mr Fearnehough was paritcularly helpful in addressing the problems we all had with our TPPP's, and I am very happy to have them for my next attempt! Everything on the list was well explained and also helpfully illustrated by Mr Fearnehough.  The feeback concerned itself in our content in particular, but also madea point of addressing our composure and presenting style.All in all, I'm very happy to have had this as it has bolstered my confidence. Soon, I hope to have my personal in-depth feedback on my TPPP so I can get my grade up to a 6. Mr Fearnehough has already given me some tips on how to do so, but I know now that this is on me.

We stayed after school on Wednesday just for an hour to practise our play, "Love Wins All". We made damn sure we had everything but focused on going over the performance and relearning our jokes. We only had an hour so everything was pretty rushed and although it helped a lot I still feel we should have done this practice session earlier. For me, it just upped the nervousness of the whole thing. I am mostly to blame for my lack of motivation and the main thing I take from this is to ne a lot more energetic and enthusiastic in the future!

Thursday 23rd May:

Today we were given our mock PPP project. IN this, we have to come up with an entireplay, and yes, that does mean EVERYTHING! We discussed it at length with Mr Fearnehough, specifically what makes a good PPP and what we can use to produce it. We have 4 weeks to create it but it has to be done in our homework time as class time is used for the set design. I like the idea of the PPP, it sounds really fun and creative but it is also another huge assignment in a period where we have to work even harder as, and to paraphraseMr Fearnehough on this: "At the end of the school year, we don't slow down, we move up a gear". The problem is this is the same in all the subjets and I am starting to feel a little smothered. Go do IB, they said... It'll be super-fun, they said...
We were given the stimuli and although I have yet to research all of it, a I do like Dali's painting. Then again, I am a big fan of surrealism, so I guess that's what appealed to me most.


Lunch time on Thursday. Go time, zero hour, D-Day, this was it. We performed "Love Wins All"!

I felt very nervous as this was my first time performing an actual play as an actor, but overall I was quite pleased my performance. One thing I do regret though is that I didn't play with the audience, a direct contradiction of our Commedia performance concept. However, when we get given back the feedback that we did and seeing reactions, it makes me wonder why I get so nervous because I actually really enjoy performing "Love Wins All".

I need to remember how I felt before and after the performance for the next performance we do in any project because I think it was give me the ability to perform as best as I can.
I felt that the performance did go well as we achieved our super-objective, which was really quite simple, to make them laugh! And laugh they did!

PPP & SET DESIGN

Wednesday 22nd May-
Today we created our own set design action plans for Mother Courage. We shared our ideas for the action plan and have already done some that are on the action plan. We havn't got any times or dates on the action plan as we probably would not be able to stick to them but the action plan amount seems fair.
It is a very creative task and I think it will be a really good experience and different role for everyone in the class.I don't think it is going to be easy and I think I might struggle at some points with the creative side but I think I will find it interesting and enjoy it.

We got some general feeback on our TPPP's too. I think that double sided page of advice and feedback is very helpful! I will be able to look back on this when preparing for my final TPPP and I know exactly what not to do! Everything on the list is explained well and we went through it with MR Fearnehough with helped me too because he gave some good examples. The feeback was informative about the content but also about how we present ourselves and the look of our TPPP's, so it covered all areas.
I didn't have chance to get personal feedback about my TPPP because we ran out of time but hopefully I will because I would like to know what I can do to make it a 6 for all my work in theatre not just the TPPP.

We stayed after school on Wednesday just for an hour to go over "Love Wins All". We made sure we had all the props, went over the performance quickly and practised our dance number at the end. We only had an hour so everything was pretty rushed but I found it very useful to quickly remind ourselves about eveything and the little jokes as we hadn't done it in so long. When practising, I was nervous for tomorrow when we were going to perform but also very excited.

Thursday 23rd May:
Today we were given our mock PPP project. We discussed the PPP and what makes a good PPP and what we can use to produce it. We have 4 weeks to create it but it has to be done in our homework time and class time is used for the set design. I like the idea of the PPP, it sounds really fun and it is our own personal ideas that we can create. We were given the stimuli and I have researched all the ideas but I think that I like the song called Frankie Teardrop the most. It has a really emotional story and everything about the song, the effects and the music were very intense and I had a lot of ideas for costumes, story, lighting, choreography... when listening to the song.

Lunch time on Thursday: We performed "Love Wins All"!!
I felt nervous before we started but as soon as it did start, I got into it straight away and REALLY enjoyed it. When we get given back the feedback that we did and seeing reactions, it makes me wonder why I get so nervous because I actually really enjoy performing "Love Wins All". My character is very fun and it is a really fun piece.
I need to remember how I felt before and after the performance for the next performance we do in any project because I think it was give me the ability to perform as best as I can.
I felt that the performance did go well and it was one of our best. There were a couple of "lines" and jokes that we missed out on but it didn't really matter in the end because it is commedia and we still got the reaction we wanted and got our superobjective!

Week 28: SO MANY PROJECTS!!

Wednesday: Today we were assigned a set design project on Mother Courage. We went over action plans, discussed possible set ideas, and different ways of doing it. This project seems fairly easy, but I may have misjudged it. We also got group feedback on the TPPP's. Mr. Fearnehough gave a piece of paper with the front and back covered with things to improve or add, things such as: limiting the amount of abstract images and collages, cautions about how to introduce you going into the theatre program, if you use a convention or theory then make sure that you are correct in you usage, and many other points. This feedback was very informative and each point has something that can be applied to my TPPP, which is kind of disappointing, but the fact that there was very little positives was kind of  depressing. I had been very worried about my TPPP because I very strongly dislike speaking in front of people, specifically in a serious setting, and I dislike speaking about myself, what I have learned or how I have changed. This is something that I will need to work on to become a better theatre student and a better speaker. 

Thursday: Today we were assigned a mock PPP to do at home while we do the Brecht project in class. This arrangement worries me because I feel like it will be difficult working on two big, and kind of similar projects at once. Mr. Fearnehough gave us the stimuli and told us that we need to pick one by monday. He then gave personal feedback on the mock TPPP. This feedback  further convinced me that I need to work a lot harder on my next TPPP as well as rehearse it more. I also need to maintain a better stage presence, not saying "crap" when I  lose my spot, and even memorizing my "lines" better. I am really disappointed in  how I did in this exam because I wanted to do well because it was the end-of-year exam and because I wanted to be able to not stress about my real TPPP, but this presentation showed me that I have a lot of work to do in the future, and it also showed me the specific areas that I need to focus on. 

A good thing to think about and reflect on during theatre

Friday: We finally performed "Love Wins All" for an audience. Before the performace I was worried about forgetting "lines", missing parts, and mostly completely freezing. So judging from this criteria I would say that my performance was a success, though, being the negative, self-deprecating person that I am, I am relatively convince that beyond this I was a complete failure, but practically thinking I think I did ok, there definite room for improvement, but I did alright. Also everyone else did amazing!!

Halley's Blog

This week in theater started off with general feedback on our TPPP presentations. There were several things that I could improve on, some dealing with the actual presentation and some dealing with the content of my presentation. As far as the physical presentation is concerned I need to title and number each image and make sure to reference the image throughout the presentation. For example during my mock I forgot to mention the image showing me in character as Mickey from “Love Wins All”; in the future I will make sure that the image adds something significant to what I’m saying instead of just being a background. Additionally I can/should annotate around the images, in ways that I can then explain during the presentation. In my mock I could have labeled the different high school stereotypes to better prove my point to the examiner/audience.

               In terms of the way I presented my TPPP, I tried to get my audience to laugh by using a funny entry from my blog entry, however I’ve been advised not to use humor in that way (seeing as the TPPP is a formal assessment). Although my mock was pretty strong in terms of synthesizing different aspects of the course, I could have spiced up my narrative by using quotes from theatre practitioners. Also it is crucial to mention the conventions of the specific form , such as the conventions of commedia dell’arte and the difference between that and modern commedia. Lastly one of the most important elements is explaining and connecting the performance concept with all the other aspects of a production.

               The ensemble stayed after school on Wednesday for a one hour rehearsal of “Love Wind All” for the performance the next day. Thursday morning we got individual feedback as well as began work on the in class set design project for “Mother Courage”. I began working on the map of the stage to show all the different sets that move on and off the stage.  Throughout the morning I fretted about the school, very nervous the lunchtime performance of our commedia piece. Once we had our audience in the “safe” theater room we began…surprisingly I had great fun! The audience was laughing at our jokes and seemed to be really enjoying the performance! Lydia and Bekki even took on the spirit of commedia by improvising and had planted an actual map in the audience (with audiene member Isabelle). When I said my planned joke “Does anyone here have a map?”, she said yeah I do!! I was taken by surprise but I took it from her and continued with the scene, happily have overcome the challenge of audience interaction/improvisation!

PPP

May 22, 2013 (Wednesday) Mr. f gave us feedback for our TPPP where at first i though in our presentation it was great but then their are many thing that we need to do and don't do when presenting, we make many mistakes in our presentation and i learned many thing in presenting a TPPP  and this feedback gave us knowledge how to do a TPPP in a presentable way.

May 23, 2012 (Thursday) We talk about our PPP, which how we will do it bas on our Action Plan that we make, so our PPP is about Set where i am not good in designing, i just started my PPP not on grid but i will start by knowing first how they used the set design in Mother Courage cause i'm not that sure or if they will be a mistake if i do the grid first, this is my first experience to do a set design which an this point i can express my idea and after that i will be learned what i've done and knowing my mistake afterwards.